Saturday, January 13, 2007
Never a Night at the Opera
The other day, coaches addressed one of Melrose's sixth grade travel teams, asking how they wanted to play. Some of the answers, "good, tough, do your best, hard, aggressive, winning." Nobody mentioned "for myself or college scholarship".
Celtics' announcer and former NBA playoff MVP Cedric Maxwell sometimes describes a player's game as a "A Night at the Opera" - ME-ME-ME. Melrose has played exceptional basketball this season by doing exactly the opposite.
The Lady Raiders have enjoyed success over the past 11 years by emphasizing defense, conditioning, and team play, boosted by a trio of All-Scholastics (Quiana Copeland, Shannon Kirwan, and Shey Peddy), and many All-League players and contributions from the whole team. Last night's victory brought the five year record to 98-6 (.942) and the three year to 54-2 (.964), with a one point and three point loss to deserving Gloucester and Oliver Ames squads, deep in the playoffs.
First year coach Rob Ferrante (above) has continued the program's success, adding some additional offensive sets, while bringing along four freshmen and a sophomore who contribute nightly, and set the competitive tone a practice. Freshman Hannah Brickley had her career high last evening, and all of the younger players have improved as the season progresses.
Celtics' announcer and former NBA playoff MVP Cedric Maxwell sometimes describes a player's game as a "A Night at the Opera" - ME-ME-ME. Melrose has played exceptional basketball this season by doing exactly the opposite.
The Lady Raiders have enjoyed success over the past 11 years by emphasizing defense, conditioning, and team play, boosted by a trio of All-Scholastics (Quiana Copeland, Shannon Kirwan, and Shey Peddy), and many All-League players and contributions from the whole team. Last night's victory brought the five year record to 98-6 (.942) and the three year to 54-2 (.964), with a one point and three point loss to deserving Gloucester and Oliver Ames squads, deep in the playoffs.
First year coach Rob Ferrante (above) has continued the program's success, adding some additional offensive sets, while bringing along four freshmen and a sophomore who contribute nightly, and set the competitive tone a practice. Freshman Hannah Brickley had her career high last evening, and all of the younger players have improved as the season progresses.
Meg Kirwan (above) is another outside threat for the Lady Raiders.
The starting guard trio of Shey Peddy, Lynley DeAmato, and Meg Kirwan have provided the best backcourt play of any Melrose team ever, and as a whole the team is playing as well as any Melrose team has. Add in the maturing play of the frontcourt led by Freshman Siena Mamayek and Senior Sharon Porcaro, and Melrose is poised to challenge their previous 52 game Middlesex League winning streak.
But it won't be easy, with two tough games against Wakefield and Lexington next week, the latter 7-1 and on a roll since an opening day nailbiting loss to Melrose.
// posted by Ron Sen, MD, FCCP @ 7:05 AM 
